Big Merger Creates Monster Booking and Review Platform: What This Means for Home Service Companies

Big Merger Creates Monster Booking and Review Platform: What This Means for Home Service Companies

On Monday, May 1, HomeAdvisor’s parent company, IAC/InteractiveCorp (owner of sites like HomeAdvisor, Match.com, Tinder, and The Daily Beast) bought Angie’s List in a deal valued over $500 million. This resulted in the creation of a monster home services consumer review and booking platform called ANGI Homeservices Inc. Why? Well, according to those involved, the goal for the new platform is to provide a mobile, quick, simple, and easy to use service – more like Uber and Amazon.

So, what does this deal mean for home service companies?

The hope is to help streamline growth between Angie’s List and HomeAdvisor. Home services are currently lagging behind other consumer services in the shift to online booking and service. So while HomeAdvisor is growing, expansion has stalled at Angie’s List; therefore, IAC hopes that by putting them together it can draw more users to the fast-growing service.

How does this affect home service business owners?

The philosophy is that even though Home Services cannot provide quick services like Uber and Lyft, a job at a higher price has the ability to have more value that the same job at a lower price. Yes, it will save you money but may not be done with great customer service or the best technicians. Many times, those consumers who went with the “lowest price near me” product, they end up calling the more expensive, more reliable contractor to clean up their mess.

With that, if you own a Home Service business, here is some advice on how to confront the change:

Stay calm and don’t worry too much. Your marketing decisions shouldn’t have any effect until 2018, so you have time to prepare.

If you aren’t a micro-business, this should have no effect on you. Reason being, it’s a speed game. When you get a lead, your company must be the first to reach out to the potential customer.

In regards to customers, you always want quality over quantity. There was a great deal of feedback that showed leads from Angie’s List and HomeAdvisor weren’t the best as the platforms weren’t great for customer service.

This isn’t the only new hub for home services. Google and Amazon are also bringing in some competition.

Do NOT put all of your eggs in one basket. The new ANGI Homeservices, Inc. sounds great as its one place to get all leads and reviews. Things aren’t always as they seem on the surface though. Focus on investing more into your website and SEO (long-term assets) instead of putting your success in the hands of another platform that you can’t control.